Right in Front of Me

We're waiting for the bus. I'm fixated on my list. I love lists. Especially with Beloved gone on the road with his new job, I need lists, because I need to remember to do the things he usually does, the things I didn't even notice, because after ten years together we've each got our stuff that we do. I empty the dishwasher. He starts it before he goes to bed. I keep forgetting to start it and arrive in the morning to a gooey coffee pot and sigh and write myself a new note. My mother always leaves notes all over the house, four pages for the babysitter, Post-Its everywhere, and I have become my mother.

My girl tries to lower her bony butt onto my lap. It is angling into my face, and I brush it to the side.

"Can you sit beside me? I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

"No. It needs to be on your lap." She indicates her butt, as though there is confusion about what she's trying to do.

She angles again; like a cat's nose her rear is insistent upon finding my lap. I put the notebook aside and she settles in, flipping her long hair over her shoulders so it swats me directly in the face. I am a heated chair. She sighs happily and grabs my arms, wrapping them around her waist.

"There. Now I'm warm."

As I lean in to smell her children's shampoo strawberry hair, I realize I'm trying to memorize the feeling of her little body on my lap. She chats happily about Halloween costumes, and neighbors pass by on their morning walks, and the breeze changes, and I feel it, and I grip her tighter, knowing she has to leave my lap and get on the bus soon, with all that means.

Today's post is sort of inspired by Sarah's writing prompt: 

Do random free writing about whatever is in front of you. Your main character is staring out the window of your living room and ruminating on the scene in front of her and then her thoughts drift to lunch, then a nightmare of last night, and then the travel plans she is hesitating on makins.